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Employee Loyalty Dropping Worldwide

At a time of lingering economic malaise, gyrating markets and high unemployment, it’s not surprising that workers around the world are less than content at their jobs. They’re also feeling a diminished sense of loyalty, according to a new global analysis of data gathered by Mercer, the giant New York City-based human resources consulting firm.

Mercer surveyed 30,000 employees in 17 spots around the globe between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the second quarter of 2011. Perhaps not surprisingly, the number of workers who are seriously considering moving on from their jobs has increased since the last time Mercer did the survey, between 2003 and 2006, before the great recession. Worldwide, between 28% and 56% of employees expressed a desire to leave their jobs. In some countries like Brazil, there has been a huge leap in the desire to move. Five years ago, just 12% of Brazilian workers said they wanted to change posts. Now more than half say they do.

In the U.S. the percentage of workers who said they wanted to leave and get a new job rose nine percentage points, from 23% in 2005 to about one in three, or 32%, in 2010.

What makes employees feel engaged? Worldwide, according to Mercer’s data, the most important factors are being treated with respect, followed by work/life balance, type of work, quality of co-workers and quality of leadership.

When Mercer examined financial factors, not surprisingly, it found that base pay was the most important factor for workers. But globally, base pay came in as the sixth most important factor, after five other, softer issues, like getting respect, and work/life balance. (Base pay was the most important factor in Hong Kong, and it was in the top three factors in China, India, Italy and Singapore.)

One message for managers in the survey results: when companies don’t have the funds to give raises, they can focus on non-monetary issues like respect and accommodating employees’ needs for time out of the office.

There are a couple of intriguing ways that the U.S. survey results stand out from the rest of the world. Benefits, and working in an environment where employees can provide good service to others, were two factors that U.S. workers said they cared more about than did workers in the rest of the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Given the rising cost of health care, the benefits preference seems reasonable. But the service to others factor is striking, and heartening. U.S. employees didn’t care as much as other global workers about learning and development opportunities, promotion chances and incentive pay.

One other intriguing if not startling note about U.S. workers and how they feel about their compensation: Women are less satisfied than men with their pay levels. On base pay, only 50% of women are satisfied, compared to 56% of men, on incentive pay the gap is 31% versus 39%, and 54% of women feel they are paid fairly based on their contribution and performance, versus 59% of men.

For a wealth of information on employee sentiment in the U.S. and other countries, click here. To see detailed findings from 16 countries, click here. (You need to enter some identifying information, but the reports are free).

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In my 30+ years as a professional recruiter, author, and speaker, I’ve found that many elements that were mentioned contribute to employee engagement and happiness. However in my opinion if you treat the problem like a chemistry problem and boil it down to base elements, it comes down to “Am I making a positive, measurable impact?” And “Am I having fun?” Money tends to take care of itself because if the employee is making impacts and having fun doing so, the money will follow. If either element is missing, they will not be happy.

I see the diminished morale at many businesses. This is going to hurt the US in the long run. I developed the Es System to improve business through Education, Ethics and Excellence. We have been “Lean” long enough and employees are tired of being treated like an expense item. Invest in them with education and they will pay you back with productivity AND loyalty.